A round-up of this year's Governor General's Award shortlist for poetry.

I've written about this year's shortlist for the Governor General's Award in poetry. Here's a sample:

In Canada, the announcement of a poetry award short list is always a cause for celebration. And, invariably, it is also a cause for complaint. We poets, you see, are notoriously hard to please. Some of us will be excited about the nominees, either because we love their work or because they are our friends, while others will be disappointed that another great poet has been ignored or that one of our enemies has managed to sneak onto the short list again. Our jubilation is only matched by our chagrin; we are supposed to be passionate, after all, and our tempers flare so high because, as we frequently tell ourselves, the stakes are so low....

Read the rest of it here.

I will be reading the poems of Al Purdy at a fundraiser for the A-Frame Trust featuring Margaret Atwood

Tickets are still available for a November 23 fundraiser for the Al Purdy A-Frame Trust, a non-profit organization whose aim is to preserve the literary and architectural heritage of the house built by poet Al Purdy in Ameliasburgh, Ontario.

The fundraiser will feature Canadian literary icon Margaret Atwood, who will give a presentation titled “Bulldozing the Mind: The Assault on Cultural and Rural Heritage. ” The presentation at the Regent Theatre in Picton, Ontario, will be followed by a reception with food and wine.

I will also be taking part in the event, reading the poems of Al Purdy.

Tickets are on sale at the Regent Theatre box office in Picton. They cost $40 for the presentation alone, or $65 for the presentation and reception. For more information, click here.

As some of you know, I was the editor of The Al Purdy A-Frame Anthology, a book of poems and remembrances (which included an original cartoon by Margaret Atwood) intended to raise funds and awareness for the Trust. If you would like to buy a copy of the anthology, you can order one from Harbour Publishing here.

For more information about The Al Purdy A-Frame Trust, or to make a donation, please visit www.alpurdy.ca.

Jacob McArthur Mooney on the shortlist for the Dylan Thomas Prize

The Dylan Thomas Prize is the world's largest annual literary prize (£30,000) for young writers (i.e. under 30). The shortlist was announced today, and it includes Canada's own Jacob McArthur Mooney, author of Folk (M&S, 2011).

Mooney is one of Canada's best young poets, and one of my personal favourites. It's great to see him getting international recognition for his excellent work!

Here's the entire 2011 Dylan Thomas Prize shortlist:

• The Meeting Point by Lucy Caldwell, Faber
• The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale, Atlantic Books
• Folk by Jacob McArthur Mooney, McClelland & Stewart
• The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht, Orion
• My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher, Orion

Read the press release here.

Coverage by CBC here. 

And coverage by BBC News here.

The Insomniac Press Fall Launch Party is Monday, October 24

WHEN: Monday, October 24, 7pm - 11pm. 

 

WHERE: The Dora Keogh Irish Pub, 141 Danforth Avenue, Toronto, Ontario.

On Monday, October 24, Insomniac Press will be launching five new literary titles at the Dora Keogh Irish Pub in Toronto, including Robin Richardson's debut poetry collection Grunt of the Minotaur.

Poet, playwright and novelist Stan Rogal, releases Bloodline, a mystery novel. Insomniac Press published Stan's Dance, Monster! Fifty Selected Poems earlier this year. 

Also launching are Jamie Popowich's debut story collection Metraville, Donna Bailey Nurse's latest book of criticism What's a Black Critic to Do II, and the re-release of Karen X. Tulchinsky's celebrated novel Love Ruins Everything.


RSVP: FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE

Visit Insomniac Press

Visit Dora Keogh

Tomas Tranströmer internet round-up

Tomas Tranströmer has won this year's Nobel Prize for literature. For those who may not be aware of his work, here is a round up of 47 of his poems available on the internet, and some recommended further reading.


POEMS

• From The Nobel Prize website: 

Allegro

The Half-Finished Heaven

Under Pressure

Open and Closed Spaces

The Nightingale in Badelunda

 

• From The Academy of American Poets website: 

After a Death
Outskirts

• From The Poetry Foundation website: 

National Insecurity
November in the Former DDR
The Indoors Is Endless

• From The Guardian newspaper website: 

Alone
(audio version)
Tracks

• From Blackbird, an online journal of literature and the arts: 

18 poems from The Sorrow Gondola translated by Patty Crane, with Swedish originals.

• From Brick Magazine's website:
  

Breathing Room

• From Google Books: 

16 poems from The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems translated by Robin Fulton
(Note: "Baltics", a long poem, is incomplete.)




FURTHER READING 

• Receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award from The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry.

Text and Video

• An Essay on The Sorrow Gondola

by David Wojan


POETRY IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION

• The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems, translated by Robin Fulton.

• The Half-Finished Heaven: Best Poems of Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Robert Bly.

• The Deleted World, versions by Robin Robertson.

Margaret Atwood to appear at fundraiser for the Al Purdy A-Frame Trust

Margaret Atwood will appear in a special fundraiser for The Al Purdy A-Frame Trust in Picton this November 23, 2011. Here is some information from a press release about the event:

Friends of East Lake (FOEL) is proud to present Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic and environmental activist Margaret Atwood in a special presentation at Picton’s Regent Theatre on November 23, 2011. Her provocatively titled presentation “Bulldozing the Mind: The Assault on Cultural and Rural Heritage” follows a reception with Ms. Atwood at Books & Company featuring County food and wine.

Tickets are available for the presentation only or for the combined event, which is a fundraiser for the Al Purdy A-Frame Trust and Friends of East Lake.

The A-Frame Trust is dedicated to preserving the cottage built by celebrated Canadian poet Al Purdy and his wife Eurithe on Roblin Lake in Ameliasburgh. The cottage was a destination for outstanding writers of the era, including Ms. Atwood, at a time when its owner became one of Canada’s most popular and important 20th century poets....

Tickets for the November event will go on sale at the Regent Theatre box office in August at $40 for Ms. Atwood’s presentation only or $65 for the reception and presentation.

Read the rest of the press release here.

As some of you know, I was the editor of The Al Purdy A-Frame Anthology, a book of poems and remembrances (which included an original cartoon by Margaret Atwood) intended to raise funds and awareness for the Trust. If you would like to buy a copy of the anthology, you can order one from Harbour Publishing here.

For more information about The Al Purdy A-Frame Trust, or to make a donation, please visit www.alpurdy.ca.

Sam Cheuk's Love Figures reviewed in the Maple Tree Literary Supplement

U of T Creative Writing grad Catriona Wright reviews Sam Cheuk's Love Figures in the latest Maple Tree Literary Supplement. Here's a sample:

Reading Sam Cheuk’s debut poetry collection Love Figures is like stepping into a film noir. Each poem is “an interrogation room” (63) with the speaker at once the detective “rummag[ing] through the memorabilia / for clues” (74) and the perpetrator confessing, perhaps falsely, to being the one with his “hand on the cleaver” (16). A chiaroscuro effect, as likely to be created by 9-11 memorial searchlights as by the shadows between a girl’s crossed legs, simultaneously conceals and spotlights meaning. Doppelgängers and multiple personalities abound. Two-way or compromised by hairline fractures, mirrors disorient and distort rather than reflect. Speakers connect to the others in their lives, most notably parents and lovers, with sincere ambivalence. Here, lying is always the quickest way to the truth.

Read the entire review here. 

Marcus McCann interviewed on MyGSA.ca

I'm currently working with Marcus McCann to bring out his second collection of poems The Hard Return with my 4 A.M. Books imprint at Insomniac Press in spring 2012. Marcus has been interviewed by the queer advocacy site MyGSA.ca, and I'd like to share that with you. Here is a sample:

MyGSA: Do you find you are impacted by place?  Does an urban space provide you with a lot of material for your writing? Have you lived/traveled outside of Canada and have those places/spaces influenced your work?

MM: Yes, in terms of urban space. I find a lot of poets who live in cities still resort to poems about birds and wheat fields. Why is that? I write poems about cell phones and puffy coats and apartment towers because for most Canadians, that’s more likely to be an image they can conjure in their heads, compared to a red-throated lorikeet or a creeping thistle, or whatever.

Read the entire interview here.